Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

The rocks of the Bietschhorn

An early breakfast put fresh strength into us. It is a common mistake of mountaineers not to breakfast early enough and not to breakfast often enough. If it be desired to achieve a long expedition when there is not likely to be too much spare time, the wise man will eat something at least every two hours up to about 10 o’clock in the morning, supposing, for instance, he started about 2 A.M. It is astonishing to notice how the full man gains upon the empty one on fatiguing snow slopes. We strode rapidly across the basin of snow called the Jägifirn and arrived at the foot of the gully. But now we could see that our suspicions were more than verified: ugly-looking marks in the snow above indicated falling stones, and the snow itself was obviously in a condition prone to avalanches. This danger must always be present in couloirs to a greater or less extent in such seasons as the one we were experiencing. There had been sufficient power of sun to convert the contents of the gully into what would have been, in fine weather, a glistening ice slope. But much fresh snow had fallen recently. It but rarely can happen, when snow has fallen late in the season or during the hot months, that the new and the old layers can become properly amalgamated. If, therefore, there is too great a thickness of fresh snow to allow of steps being cut through this into the ice beneath, such couloirs are unsafe. The mark of a single avalanche due to the sliding off of the fresh snow on the ice beneath – a mark easily enough recognised – would deter any save an unwise person or a novice from attempting such a line of ascent. The marvellous hereditary instinct so often attributed to guides in judging of this condition really reduces itself to a matter of very simple observation and attention, and one within the reach of anybody. But travellers in the Alps too often appear to treat their reasoning faculties like they do their tall hats, and leave them at home. The question then was, Were the rocks right or left of this snow gully practicable? We all agreed that they were, and proceeded at once to test the accuracy of our opinion.

Avalanches on the Bietschhorn

We crossed the bergschrund – that godsend to writers on mountaineering in search of material to act as padding – and without dwelling on its insecure bridge longer than we need now dwell on the subject made swiftly for some rocks on the left. Scarcely had we gained them when a rush of snow and ice, of no great dimensions, but still large enough to be formidable, obliterated all the tracks we had just made. This settled the point at once, and we felt that by the rocks alone would it be proper to force the ascent. While on the ridge we were safe enough, and had the advantage as we clambered up of a most commanding position from whence we could view the frequent avalanches that swept by. The rain of the previous night, though it had only lasted for an hour or two, had evidently had a great effect on the state of the snow, and the avalanches seemed to pour down almost incessantly: probably some forty or fifty swept by us while we climbed by the side of the gully, and our situation gave rise to that feeling of somewhat pained security which is experienced when standing on a railway platform as an express train dashes by; we certainly felt that some of the downfalls would have reduced our party to a pulp quite as easily and with as much unconcern as the train itself. The guides, who do not perhaps tax their memories very severely for a parallel on such an occasion, asserted, as they generally do, that they had never seen anything like it in the whole course of their lives. They then fell to whistling, laughed very gaily, and borrowed tobacco from each other.

A dramatic situation

Gradually our difficulties became more pronounced, and conversation on indifferent topics was discarded, the remarks being confined to brief exclamations such as “Keep it tight!” “Don’t touch that one!” “Hold on now!” “You’re treading on my fingers!” “The point of your axe is sticking into my stomach!” and similar ejaculations. Once in a way we ascended for a few feet by the snow, though never quite losing touch of the rocks, and sank waist deep in the soft compound filling up the gully. Then we went back to the rotten rocks for a brief spell, well content to be more out of the reach of chance fragments of ice falling down the shoot. It is wonderful to note how quickly time passes in an exciting climb of this nature; but our progress was actually rather rapid, so fast indeed that we did not fully realise at one period that we were getting into difficulties and that we had without doubt strayed, Christian-like, from the narrow path which was evidently the right one. Throughout the day we were conscious that the climb was too long to be completed if we made any serious mistake involving the retracing of steps. Quite suddenly, our situation became critical: a hurried glance up and down along the line revealed the fact that each member of the party had to do all he knew to preserve his position. The attitudes were ungainly enough to suggest instantaneous photographs at an ill-selected movement of four individuals dancing a “can-can.” Maurer was engaged apparently in an extremely close and minute inspection of the toe of his right boot. Another member of the party was giving a practical illustration of the fact that he could, by extreme extension of his arms, stretch more than his own height, while a third was endeavouring to find out why the power of co-ordinating his muscular movements was suddenly lost to him, and why he could not persuade his left leg to join his right. For a few moments Jaun, who was leading, hung on by his finger-tips and the issue of the expedition hung in the balance. But our leader, by dint of some complicated sprawls, transferred himself over a passage of rock on which we had no earthly reason to be, and assisted the rest of the party to regain a more promising line of ascent. For those few minutes the situation was dramatic enough, and the thought crossed my mind that the curtain might not improbably descend on it; a solution of the difficulty which commends itself to the playwright when he has involved his dramatis personæ in difficulties, but which is not without its objections to the climber. On the whole the rocks on this face of the mountain are much more difficult than on the other, and, writing now after the lapse of some years, I am disposed to think that these are perhaps the most difficult crags of any that I have ever met with to climb properly, that is with a minimum of risk to one’s self and to one’s companions; as a good proof of this I may say that the ascent would probably have appeared fairly easy to a novice and that it required some little Alpine experience to realise their real difficulty and their treacherous nature. There was scarcely time to test adequately all hand and foothold, and examination of rocks by what surgeons term palpation is a sine quâ non in rock climbing. Undoubtedly the mountain was not in the best possible order. We may possibly have rearranged the rocks in our line of ascent in a more convenient manner for those who follow. Certainly we may fairly say that in our actual line of ascent we left no stone unturned to ensure success.

The united party nearly fall out

Close below the ridge – within perhaps ten feet of it, for if I remember aright our leader had actually reached the crest – came the climax to what was perhaps rather a perilous climb. The first and second on the rope had met in their upward passage a huge cube of rock whose security they had carefully tested, and to surmount which it was necessary to stretch to the fullest extent in order to gain a respectable hold for the hands. We were all four in a direct line one below the other, and the two last on the rope were placed perforce directly beneath the treacherous crag. By an extension movement which conveyed some notion of the sensation experienced by those on the rack, I had reached a handhold pronounced to be of a passable nature by those above. By this manœuvre I succeeded in getting my feet exactly to a place on which the others, who were much heavier than I, had stood in security; without rhyme or reason the block of stone, which was about the size of a grand pianoforte, suddenly broke away from under me; a huge gap seemed cloven out in the mountain side, and Maurer, below, had only just time to spring aside, enveloped in a cloud of dust, and to throw himself flat against the rock, while the rope was strained to the utmost. Fortunately the handhold above was sound and I was able to hold on with feet dangling in the air, searching in vain for some projection on which to rest. Those above were too insecure to give any efficient help, and in fact possibly viewed my struggles, inasmuch as they were not fully aware at first of what had happened, with as much equanimity as a person inside a boat contemplates the gymnastic performances of a bather trying to climb over the edge. As the cloud of dust cleared off, however, and Maurer’s face gradually beamed through it like the sun in a fog, for the excitement had made him the colour of a cornet player giving vent to a high note, they began to realise that something abnormal had happened, while the distant thundering reverberations of the falling mass assured them that it was no ordinary slip. Meanwhile Maurer planted his axe so as to give me some foothold, and with a push from below and a pull from above, fortunately simultaneous, I succeeded in planting my feet where my hands were, and subsequently undoubling found that we were within a few feet of the ridge, that the panorama beyond was undoubtedly magnificent, but was thrown out in strong relief by deep blue-black thunder-clouds advancing towards us.

Jaun now removed his empty pipe from his mouth and replaced it by a lucifer match, which, either as an aid to reflection or possibly for medicinal purposes, he chewed as he contemplated the ridge. A miserably cold wind with a remarkable knack of detecting all the rents in our raiment whistled around; above, the summit of the mountain was enveloped in driving thick mist and cloud. Still the final ridge looked fairly easy, and indeed proved to be so. The snow was deep and soft, and the stones below were so arranged as to remind us forcibly of a newly mended road in our native country; big and little, all seemed loose, and all arranged with their sharpest points and edges uppermost. The ridge is moderately broad, and we were able to flounder along with fair rapidity. Spurred on by the unpromising look of the weather and stimulated by the cold wind, which rendered any halts so unpleasant as to be out of the question, we set to work in earnest and found ourselves at the base of the final little snow and rock cone earlier than the length of the ridge had led us to expect. As we stepped on to the summit we experienced the curious sensation usually arising when climbing through clouds, that the mountain itself was sinking away rapidly from under our feet. The panorama was wholly composed of a foreground consisting of mist, and presented therefore comparatively few attractions.

A limited panorama

It was already so late in the afternoon that we could not have afforded to stay in any case, and, as we felt that serious difficulties might possibly be encountered in descending, we set off at once, visions of a warm welcome and a hot bath at Ried rising before our minds. The idea of descending by way of the Baltschieder Joch was negatived without a division. The northern ridge of the Bietschhorn is a counterpart of the one by which we had ascended, with the solitary advantage in our case that we had to go down it and not up. The snow slopes leading down to the Nest Glacier were much broader, and we were strongly tempted more than once to quit the ridge for this western face of the mountain. Ultimately, persuaded that the condition of the snow justified us in so doing, we struck straight down on to the Nest Glacier, skirted round the ridge of rocks dividing the Nest Glacier from the Birch Glacier, and catching sight of a little green patch some way below, threw off the rope and rushed precipitately down to it. Misguided by a few gleams of sunshine breaking out between the driving clouds, we conceived the idea of repose and thought that we might as well be aired and dried. Below, the hotel at Ried was in full view, and it seemed but an hour or two from us: but our troubles were not yet over. The five minutes’ halt on such occasions not uncommonly expand into five-and-fifty, and we rather deliberately averted our gaze from the western view of the valley, up which the thunder-clouds were advancing steadily in close formation. Eventually we decided to move on, in order to avoid getting once more wet through. Vain hope: rapid though our descent was to the level of the forest it was not rapid enough. We ran furiously down the rough slopes, but, as the storm advanced and we perceived that we should be caught, the agitation of our minds gradually equalled the agitation of our bodies. We seemed to get no nearer Ried, while the darkness increased rapidly around us. Knowing the proclivities of guides on such occasions, my companion and I agreed that nothing should induce us to leave a path, should we perchance find one. Now, in a dim light it is exceedingly easy to discover paths, but extremely difficult to discover that variety of track that leads anywhere. Determined, however, to stick to our resolution, we found ourselves continually pursuing level stretches right and left, only to find that, as routes to any particular place, they were snares and delusions; that there was a path with long zigzags we knew, and indeed, finally, a shout from the guides, who skipped about downhill with an utter disregard for the integrity of their joints, and adopted that curious cantering gait considered on the stage to express light-hearted joy, announced that they had discovered the way. With characteristic inconsistency, they had no sooner found what we had been so long searching for than they proposed to leave it and make short cuts, so called; but we were inflexible, and determined not to leave our path or be seduced by the attractions of a perpendicular descent through an unknown territory. The hotel lights were no longer visible, but we knew that they lay straight below us. The question was whether we should turn right or left. The guides settled the matter by darting off ahead, ostensibly from a perfect acquaintance with their situation, but actually as we suspected to avoid being worried with unpleasant topographical questions. Gradually as we followed the track our stern purpose began to waver, for it was pointed out by some one that the path, though undoubtedly a good one in point of construction and general purpose, had two distinct disadvantages from our present point of view; one being that it led uphill, and the other that it ran in the wrong direction. There are certain contingencies in life in which the Briton finds but one adequate method of relieving and expressing his feelings, such, for instance, as when he finds himself bespattered with mud from the passing hansom on a carefully selected shirt-front and a white tie that would have moved to envy; or when, again, as the last to leave his club at night he finds the only remaining head-gear to consist of a well-worn beaver many sizes too large, with fur under the brim and a decoration of little rosettes and bobstays. It is hard to see why the ejaculation of any particular monosyllable should do him good at such a juncture. Hard words unquestionably break no bones, but neither do they mend the broken collar-stud or the ruptured bootlace; and yet if he swallows the expression down it will certainly ferment within him, and fermentation is characterised by multiplication. If, on the contrary, he articulates his feelings, the whole situation suddenly appears changed, and he can view the most untoward circumstances once more with a calm serenity of temper. But the remedy, though potent, specific almost, is too valuable to be resorted to constantly, and should be reserved, like Thursday’s razor, for the most special occasions.

A race for home

Our situation on the present occasion fully justified us in resorting to the source of relief vaguely alluded to, and we employed it simultaneously with the happiest results. Now the guides triumphed, and such was our accommodating mood that we actually acceded to their counsel and embarked on a perilous descent down a vertical gully. Scarcely had we turned into it when the storm broke and the rain came down in sheets, and very damp sheets too. Some one now suggested that the wisest plan would be to remain under shelter till the rain had passed off. It was argued against this amendment, and with a certain amount of force, first that there was no probability of the rain stopping, and secondly that there was no shelter: so we went on. Gradually, as we became more wet, we grew more desperate, and before long floundered down as regardless of bumps as a bluebottle in a conservatory: at one moment slithering over wet slabs of rock to which damp tufts of moss were loosely adherent, at another climbing carefully over gigantic toothcombs of fallen trees, then plunging head foremost – sometimes not exactly head foremost – through jungle-like masses of long grass and dwarf brushwood. Soaked to the skin, steamy, damp, and perspiring like bridegrooms, we went on, utterly reckless as to our apparel, and haunted by a perpetual idea that we should find ourselves ultimately at some place whence further descent would be impossible.

Caught out

Within a few minutes the party divided and Jaun and I found ourselves together. By the lightning flashes I saw him from time to time; on one occasion he suddenly disappeared from view, and on joining him cautiously a little while after I found that he had just previously seated himself abruptly on a flat rock, immediately underneath a miniature torrent. The fact that we did not at every ten seconds run against large trees confirmed the idea that we were now almost out of the wood; accordingly we halloaed, as the occasion seemed suitable, but no answer was returned from our companions. Now came the question of how we were to cross the torrent which we knew lay between us and the hotel. Jaun cheerfully remarked that the best plan would be to find the bridge. This was obvious enough, but he confessed that he had forgotten at what part of the river’s course the bridge lay. However, keeping close together, we made towards the right, on which side the stream lay. The slopes were here more level and less carelessly laid out. Our hopes revived, for the hotel could only be a few minutes off, and between the peals of thunder we could hear the roar of the torrent and could hear also the hollow sound due to the boulders rolling over its stony bed. Of a sudden we came on to its banks, and formidable enough the stream looked. The idea of searching for the bridge seemed childish, for the whole of the frail wooden structure had probably been carried away long before down to the Rhone valley. The hotel was only a few yards off, and again the situation was exasperating enough to justify a resort to extreme measures, if it were an extreme measure to express forcibly a wish that the torrent might be – well, temporarily stopped up at some higher point. Jaun now volunteered to wade across. It was quite unnecessary for him to divest himself of any clothing for the purpose, and in fact when he had succeeded very pluckily in reaching the other side he was not in the least degree wetter than when he started. He shouted some observations from the other side, which I took to mean that he would go on to the hotel and procure a lantern. Accordingly I seated myself to await his return, selecting unintentionally a little pool of water, which however did just as well as anything else.

The water jump

Before long a flashing light advancing indicated that Jaun had been successful, and two forms were seen dimly on the opposite side, one with a light. The bearer of the lantern was an aged person in shirt sleeves and a highly excited frame of mind. The aged person, on the distant shore, gesticulated as violently as a marionette doll when its wires have got hitched up wrong, and then, seemingly possessed of a sudden fury, rushed violently down a steep place and beckoned frantically with his lantern. This seemed to mean that I was to descend to a point on the bank opposite to where he stood. It now appeared that there was a bridge within a few yards of us, if a single spiky, submerged, and insecure trunk could be considered such. The old man embraced me warmly when I had made my way across, slapped me hard on the back, and then laughed very loud and suddenly. Then he darted off with the agility and abruptness of movement of an elderly lady from the country crossing in front of an omnibus, or a hen, a foolish animal that always waits to the last moment before running needlessly to the wrong side of the road. Guided by the lantern which the impulsive veteran flourished wildly in every direction, so that no one dared approach him, in another ten minutes we reached the hotel and found ourselves, with the exception of our companions, who had arrived a few minutes before – Heaven only knows how, for they did not – fortunately the only occupants of the hotel. The volatile sexagenarian calmed down, put on his coat, put out his lantern, and retired to repose in an outhouse, a shelter to which I fancy he was relegated owing to certain physical infirmities.

A classical banquet

It was eleven o’clock, and we had been pretty actively employed for twenty-one hours. The idea of food and a change of raiment was not, therefore, distasteful. A middle-aged female with an excessively “rational” and hygienic waist, who said she was the waitress, volunteered to serve the banquet, but the change of raiment necessary was naturally beyond her means, while the idea of borrowing from the aged person’s wardrobe did not commend itself to us, so we ordered in a large stock of towels. “But,” I remarked, “you can’t go about in a bath towel” – the truth of which assertion was immediately evident, for they were so small that it was difficult to fasten them with any degree of security; accordingly blankets were requisitioned, and a very classical effect in costume was thus produced, though what the Romans did when there was a gale of wind I do not know. To keep up the delusion we arranged the chairs after the fashion of couches, and appeased our hunger with a curious repast of stewed apples and mixed biscuits, the sole articles of food that could be discovered. However, to anticipate, we fared better the next day at breakfast; for though Bright Chanticleer proclaimed the morn at 3 A.M. he did not proclaim any subsequent period of time, as he was captured and cooked for our repast. The waitress while we supped was busily engaged in stoking up the stove, and seized upon our damp raiment with avidity to have it ready for the next morning; so energetic was she in fact that we felt it necessary to remonstrate, foreseeing the probability that our clothes might have to be brought back to us in a dust shovel: we remarked that, though sorry for our misdeeds, we would limit for choice the repentant nature of our apparel to the sackcloth we were then wearing and would dispense with the adjunct of ashes. The unreliable nature of the fastenings of our costume prevented us from accompanying our forcible remarks with properly impressive gestures. The remonstrance, however, had the desired effect, and our garments the next day, though somewhat shrivelled and inconveniently tight here and there, still proved that they had resisted effectively the fire as well as the water.

The old cure

The amount of luxury found in the Lötschthal since those days has materially improved. Time was when the only accommodation for the traveller was to be found at the humble tenement of Mons. le Curé, a worthy old creature as I remember him, who appeared to keep an apiary in his back drawing-room and was wont to produce the most excellent honey and the most uncompromising bread; the latter article, as one might judge, was baked about as often as the old gentleman washed himself. But the milk of human kindness flowed strongly in him (as it may be said to do in those who have been made the subjects of transfusion), though, to tell the truth, it was somewhat decidedly flavoured with garlic, and it needed much resolution to attentively listen to the confidential communications he was in the habit of whispering. A man of education and gentle refinement – at any rate of mind – his was a hard lot, buried away in a squalid little parish, with no earthly being to talk to possessed of more than one idea; yet he slaved on contentedly enough with no thought beyond the peasants in his own district and of how he might relieve their condition, too often at the expense of his own welfare; isolated more than any ascetic, for his mental existence was that of a hermit, from circumstances and not from will. The thought of solitary confinement is terrible, but utter mental isolation is hideous. Yet, while he entertained us hospitably with fare which, though rough, was the very best he could offer, he would not join in the repast: not, probably, from lack of appetite, but from a feeling that, owing to prolonged seclusion and association with the peasants, the more fashionable and accepted methods of preparing food for consumption and conveying it to the mouth, with subsequent details, were somewhat dim to his recollection. Yet his conversation flowed fast and he talked well: the while any reference to friends and fellow-travellers would cause him to pause for a moment or two, look upwards around the room, and fetch a rather long breath before he recommenced. A curiously gaunt old creature he seemed at first sight: with wonderful, bony, plastic hands capable of expressing anything; grotesque almost in his unkempt rustiness; provoking a smile at first, but sadness as one learnt more of him. And how closely are the two emotions associated. In truth Humour was born a twin, and her sister was christened Pathos.